Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/174

 last election, to strengthen, its position against all assaults. It used to be said that the industrialisation of the Campine—now agricultural, but rich in coal as yet unmined—would ultimately put Socialism in the saddle. The war has intervened. Who will venture to cast a horoscope now?

The language situation in Belgian was well known to Irish readers. Indeed the compliment was returned. The last paper I remember looking at before the German column under Van Boehm wheeled by Ghent was a copy of Ons Land. It contained excellent photographs of prominent Gaelic League personages, with an account of the movement in Ireland. In Flanders, the position is a sort of transposition of ours into another key. The Flamand is in a majority of nine to eight. He presents, although a Catholic, a marked temperamental resemblance to our typical Protestant Ulsterman. So far as one could judge he has pretty well had his own way in all points except one. His language will live side by side with French, but it can hardly hope, or even desire, to displace the lingua franca of civilisation. By the way, it was interesting to notice the Pro-German articles in some of the Flemish papers even after the invasion. The Germans, it was said, were first cousins of the Flemings, Teutons like them, solid, pious, religious people, not like the atheistical Walloons and French! I am afraid that the burning zeal of the